Claude Gingras

Gingras, Claude

Claude Gingras. Critic, author, b Sherbrooke, Que, 1 Jul 1931. He began his career as a journalist in 1952 with the Sherbrooke daily newspaper La Tribune. He subsequently contributed to the Quartier latin, the weekly, Notre Temps, then to the Montreal newspaper La Presse, where, near the end of the 1950s, he became music critic and record reviewer. The author of Musiciennes de chez nous (Montreal 1955), a collection of short biographies, he also has been editor-in-chief of Dictionnaire de vos vedettes (Montreal 1958) and a contributor to High Fidelity, the Canada Music Book, Musicanada, Opera Canada, and other publications. In Claude Gingras's view, the role of the critic is 'essentially to act as an intermediary between the one who gives and the one who receives... he should love passionately the field in which he works... should have a complete knowledge of his subject, reliable taste, sound judgment, and at the same time complete objectivity, independent of friendships or enmities. In sum, he should possess the evaluative powers inevitably lacking in those on one side of the footlights or the other' (Guide du spectacle et du disque, Quebec 1978).